A HISTORY OF SQUASH IN ULSTER

ULSTER SQUASH RACKETS ASSOCIATION

The first club court was built in 1937, at the Royal Belfast Golf Club, by a few gentlemen at a cost of £800, and in 1938 the original court at the Crawfordsburn Country Club was built, followed by courts at the Ulster Club right in the centre of Belfast at Gallaher the Tobacco factory. During the war, a number of courts were constructed at various army and air force bases throughout the province – for Officers and gentlemen only.

Organised squash came into being in 1948 with Sir George Clark as president, Stuart Pollock of Irish Cricket fame as secretary, and Alan Kinnaird as treasurer; these three men ran the U.S.R.A. for many years.The first clubs in the U.S.R.A. were Q.U.B., Crawfordsburn, Royal Belfast Glof Club, Gallagher’s & service courts at Aldergrove, Lisburn Palace Barracks, & Ballykinar.

From these small, rather exclusive beginnings, the game grew continuously; in 1976 there were 106 league teams with 8, 500 affiliated players; by the mid 1980’s more than double these figures were playing squash in the province.

Veteran’s squash was started in 1976 and the Ulster veteran’s club had at its heyday almost 200 members including ladies. Veteran’s squash remains popular to today, and was, in the 1990’s, one of the only growth areas along with junior squash.

Sadly, the number of young adults between 19 and 30 yrs participating in squash has steadily decreased since the halcyon days of the 1980’s.

Within any sport, administrators play a large part in organising, directing, and coordinating their sport; it would be unfair however, to single out individuals with the notable exception of Frank McKeever. Frank, who is sadly no longer with us, produced and edited the Ulster Handbook for over 3 decades. He was Ulster League Secretary from 1974 until his death in the spring of 1993. He was also the first Irishman to serve on the Rules Committee of the World’s Governing Body. His mention in this short history of Ulster Squash is well deserved.

ULSTER WOMEN’S SQUASH RACKETS ASSOCIATION

Although there had been ladies squash played in Ulster for many years, Ulster Ladies squash only became organised in 1963 when ladies form Crawforsdsburn Country Club (C.C.C.), Royal Belfast Golf Club and Gallaher’s, Connswater arranged inter-club matches. Monday night was traditionally ladies night at C.C.C., hence league Matches were played on Mondays. The opening of the McCallum hall in 1964 saw the league expand in size, and provided the venue for the first Women’s Irish Open Championship, with Dorothy Boyd from Ulster emerging as victor. The late 1960’s saw the league continue to expand in size with the opening of commercial clubs and leisure centres with squash court facilities.

The association took a large step forward in the early 70’s, when it adopted a constitution (based on the W.S.R.A. in London), and Dorothy Boyd (then U.W.S.R.A. League Secretary) successfully applied for grant aid from the Sports Council for Northern Ireland.

By 1980, the U.W.S.R.A. had the following team participation figures;

All in all, a total of 92 teams playing ladies team squash!

The 1990’s however, did not see this growth continue, as a result of competition from other sports, and there was a large decline in the number of people playing in the U.W.S.R.A. after 1990. 1995 saw the amalgamation of the U.S.R.A. and the U.W.S.R.A., to form a single body responsible for the Squash playing community in Northern Ireland – Ulster Squash.